When cracks in the financial and housing markets first started to appear last year, the world’s wealthiest people remained relatively immune, and continued to spend lavishly on the playthings of the rich: sports cars, diamond necklaces and £650 ($1,000) mobile phones.
From FT.com:
When cracks in the financial and housing markets first started to appear last year, the world’s wealthiest people remained relatively immune, and continued to spend lavishly on the playthings of the rich: sports cars, diamond necklaces and £650 ($1,000) mobile phones.
But the severity of this year’s collapse in global financial markets has reached even the super-rich, ending the spending boom that has more than doubled the size of the global luxury goods market during the past decade.
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‘2009 will be the first year when real consumption of luxury goods will diminish,’ says Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner in the Milan office of consultancy Bain & Co, which recently completed a global study of the luxury market. ‘We expect a weak fourth quarter and a weak Christmas.’
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